Even though transgender people represent only an estimated 1% of the United States population, we are increasingly the target of restrictive government policies and election-year fear-mongering. This has been especially true under President Donald Trump, who, since day one of his second administration, has targeted transgender people across all areas of life—from education to employment to military service to identification to health care—and used trans people as political pawns to mobilize his perceived base.
This week’s announcement that the administration is rescinding Biden-era regulations enumerating protections for LGBTQ students is yet another example of the federal government’s unrelenting effort to bully transgender young people, particularly as elections approach. But while this latest attack is gratuitous and cruel, the rescission does not actually change the law; schools can and should continue to include transgender students equally in all educational programs.
Title IX, the landmark 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, is often associated with efforts to even the playing field in sports, but the statute addresses all sex discrimination in education from the classroom to the teacher’s lounge to the basketball court.
In 2024, the Biden Administration took important steps to ensure that LGBTQ students were fully protected. While I would argue that the Biden Title IX rule fell short in some respects, it also included comprehensive regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. Those regulations were blocked in court, however, and never took effect; instead, the government reverted to a 2020 rule issued under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The Trump administration’s action this week to formally reinstate the DeVos rule does not change the standards currently being enforced or reduce existing legal protections for LGBTQ students. Rather, it is a cruel and unnecessary gesture that demeans the importance of legal protections for LGBTQ students and the dignity of trans youth.
As much as President Trump may suggest that he can rewrite Title IX, that is not within the power of the executive. Title IX itself still prohibits sex discrimination in education, and the Supreme Court has held that it is impossible to discriminate against someone for being gay or transgender without discriminating on the basis of sex. Unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise, this general proposition still stands, which means LGBTQ students retain protections under federal civil rights law.
To be sure, earlier this year the Supreme Court permitted the exclusion of transgender students in the unique, zero-sum, context of sports, where, it said, states and schools may exclude transgender women and girls from women’s and girls’ sports. But neither that decision nor the now-revived 2020 Title IX regulations says that schools must exclude transgender girls from girls’ sports. And, outside of sports, both federal and local protections for LGBTQ students remain valid and fully enforceable. With the administration’s continued cruel anti-trans rhetoric, it is more important than ever that schools do not waver in their commitment to protecting LGBTQ students.
Even without these latest attacks on their rights, LGBTQ students documented elevated rates of discrimination in school. A recent survey of 2,800 LGBTQ-identified students reported that 68% experienced harassment or assault based on their transgender status and 62% experienced harassment or assault based on their sexual orientation. That same survey conducted a follow-up focus group after the 2024 election. In doing so, they documented significant increases in “hostility, bullying, and harassment” following the 2024 election.
A vulnerable group of young people is being made more vulnerable by the political conditions and rhetoric demonizing them. Now all eyes must turn to the state and local officials charged with protecting them.
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